WASHINGTON-James Hansen returned to Capitol Hill a hero yesterday, but certainly not a conquering hero.

The soft-spoken scientist, hailed as the "whistle-blower for the
planet," tried to quiet a standing ovation from environmentalists here
with a typically blunt admonition.

"It is not a time to celebrate," said Hansen, 20 years to the day
since he became the first leading scientist to warn of the dangers of
global warming before a congressional committee.

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He returned not to bask in any adulation, but to warn that the Earth
is nearing a tipping point, to call for a national carbon tax and to
say that CEOs of energy companies may be guilty of crimes against
humanity and nature.

On June 23, 1988, by most accounts, the temperature in the committee
room hovered at 38C and the U.S. was in the midst of a historic drought
when Hansen told a Senate committee he was "99 per cent certain" that
humans were warming the global climate.

His comments brought the issue to American consciousness.

The following day, The New York Times carried an account under the headline:

Global warming has begun, expert tells Senate.

Although global warming alarms had been sounding for more than a
decade and Canadian scientists were warning of the greenhouse effect in
the early 1980s, Hansen's testimony seemed to crystallize the concern
and provide the first jolt to the mass media in this country.

Two decades later, now 67 and director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, his message has not changed.

"We have reached a point of planetary emergency," he said.

"There are tipping points in the climate system, which we are very
close to, and if we pass them, the dynamics of the system take over and
carry you to very large changes which are out of your control."

During a speech at the National Press Club, he rambled, as if his
ideas were sprinting well ahead of his words, but he kept an overflow
ballroom audience rapt.

Already, he said, the world's safe level of atmospheric carbon dioxide has been exceeded.

Yet, in the 20 years since he first testified, no major U.S. law
restricting greenhouse gas emissions has been passed, 21 new coal-fired
generating units have been built at power plants in this country and
total U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide have climbed by about 18 per
cent.

"If there is any single moment that marked the turning point where
the climate issue became a serious public policy issue, June 23, 1988,
had to be seen as that moment," said Christopher Flavin, president of
the Worldwatch Institute.

"(Yesterday) may mark a second kind of turning point."

Tim Wirth, the onetime Democratic Colorado senator who organized the
hearing that day, said he knew he had made much progress with Hansen's
testimony when a report made the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated.

"It was a brave and lonely leadership role he played then, and he hasn't stopped one day since," Wirth said.

Hansen's second Capitol Hill appearance in 1989 was before a
committee chaired by a Tennessee senator named Al Gore, but the White
House edited his statement before Gore's committee, throwing into
question his certainty about the link between human activity and global
warming.

Hansen was told he could accept the revisions, or he would not be able to testify.

So, in advance of the hearing, he asked Gore to question him on the
edited parts, he then revealed the White House edit and the story led
all U.S. network newscasts that evening. Hansen then moved out of the
political spotlight for 15 years.

Yesterday, Hansen warned of greater forest fire risk in Canada, the
extinction of polar and alpine species, danger to the coral reefs and
the ocean life that depends on them because of carbon dioxide in the
oceans, and refugees from melting ice sheets in Greenland and the
western Antarctic.

He called for a phase-out of all coal-burning power plants by 2030
except those in which carbon dioxide is captured and buried and he
called for a carbon tax on coal, oil and gas.

The tax, he said, should be returned in full to the public - not
used by government - in equal amounts for each adult and a half-share
for children, deposited directly into bank accounts or credited to
debit cards.

Such a non-regressive tax, Hansen says, will spur low and
middle-income people to limit their tax while profligate users will pay
for their excesses.

He also accused corporate America of a "greenwash" in which their
environmentally friendly words are not backed by actions and he
supported criminal charges against CEOs of corporations such as
ExxonMobil who are smart enough to know the situation but are intent on
continuing their fossil fuel ways.

"When their descendants look back on them, they should not to be able to pretend that they didn't know," Hansen said.

"They do know."

They are also guilty of funding and promoting contrarian views from
scientists, furthering a charade that confuses the public into
believing there is debate among scientists in this country, Hansen said.

"There is no debate," he said.

Next year, with a new president, a new direction is desperately needed, Hansen said.

He said a call for offshore drilling, sounded last week both by U.S.
President George W. Bush and Republican presumptive nominee John McCain
is "crazy."

"To go around drilling for the last drop of oil on the continental
shelf will extend our addiction a little bit, but it will put us past
the tipping point," he said.